


Double Shift

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Unspeakably Complicated Circumstances [3]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 01:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6218254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agents Potter and Diggory end up working a double shift on Christmas Eve; a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to <a class="i-ljuser-profile" href="http://rosenskimmer.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://rosenskimmer.livejournal.com/">rosenskimmer</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Double Shift

" _This_ was your brilliant plan?" Cho demanded. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked remarkably like Hermione did when she was on the rampage about something or the other - usually Ron skiving off work for no good reason.

Harry sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. "My plan would have run smoothly if you'd done as you were told. Now all three of us are stuck here and, oh yes, it's Christmas Eve!"

"It's hardly my fault that the American Ministry insisted that they needed a British hand in this matter, or that they chose one of their junior-most agents for what has been decidedly anything but a routine investigation!" Cho tossed her head angrily. Her long black plait almost whipped Harry in the face, and he dodged.

Cedric - who was wearing his Tiberius glamour - sat up straighter. "Look, Auror Chang, no one wants to be here, and we're all understandably frustrated, but getting angry won't help us get out of here."

Cho leaned forward and cast Cedric an icy glare. "And I suppose _you_ have a better plan than Potter over here? The Americans must be very gullible to the wiles of celebrity. Just because he killed one Dark Lord doesn't mean he's a qualified law enforcement agent."

"Hey," Cedric said, tone sharp, "Harry and I both earned our stripes going through training, and if you have any issues with the operation, you take them up with _me_ , because I'm the senior partner."

Harry wondered if Cho would have been more pleasant if she'd known that underneath Tiberius' sallow face and lank black hair was a boy she'd fancied while she was at Hogwarts.

Cedric took a deep breath. "Now, my plan is quite simple. As much as you and I are the senior investigators on this case, Harry is the trump card, and he's more valuable alive than the two of us combined."

Cho opened her mouth to protest, then thought the better of it and just nodded.

"If we manage to fake some sort of medical emergency on Harry's part, they'll come rushing in to rescue him," Cedric continued.

"We don't have our wands," Cho protested.

"I'm more than physically capable of subduing someone," Cedric said, and Harry resisted the urge to grin. He'd seen Unspeakable Diggory in action once or twice, and it was quite the sight, Cedric moving with lightning speed and liquid grace, muscles sliding beneath skin in a sensual display of strength and --

Harry forced his attention back to the plan.

"But they'll cast stunning charms on us or something before they come in," Cho said.

"Now, Miss Chang, forgive me for presuming, but even though you use a wand, you were tutored in traditional Chinese magic, were you not?" Cedric's tone was earnest, and Harry sat up straighter, intrigued.

How did Cedric know that about Cho? And how was magic in one country different from another?

"Yes," Cho said slowly, and her expression turned wary. "How did you know that?"

Cedric said, "When they frisked us, I made an inventory of everything they took --"

"That's standard procedure," Cho cut in.

Cedric nodded. "And they took our wands, my knife, and your throwing daggers, but not the rice paper you had folded in your pocket."

Harry remembered that - he'd seen the masked guard tug it out of Cho's pocket, shrug, and put it back.

"Oh!" Cho reached into her robe pocket and fished out a stack of folded strips of paper. Cedric had called it rice paper - was it made of rice, like the rice people ate?

"I'm impressed that you recognized it," Cho said. She looked at Cedric with a newfound respect. "The problem is I don't have a paintbrush or ink or anything. I always used my wand as my brush."

"But your wand doesn't matter with the Chinese magic, right?" Cedric asked.

"That's true, but I'm not nearly as good at traditional magic as I am at the international system." Cho bit her lip. "And I do need ink and something to write with."

"Does it have to be ink specifically, or just clear enough to read?" Cedric's brow was furrowed; Harry recognized that expression and knew that something both brilliant and horrifying was soon to follow.

"When I was a kid, I once tried using spit in the dirt, but it didn't work," Cho admitted, blushing faintly.

"Would blood work?"

There was that horrifying part. Harry darted a nervous glance at Cedric, but he was watching Cho intently, waiting for an answer.

Cho swallowed hard. "There's no reason it shouldn't."

"Good. How fast can you write, then?" Cedric asked.

If Harry hadn't been with Cedric for the past two years like he had been, he might have been worried that Cedric was still carrying a torch for an old flame.

"As fast as I can in English," Cho said. "But the spells I can do are limited. I mean, if I were better at this sort of thing, I could create a portal for us to step through, or --"

Cedric smiled tightly. "Don't fret about what you can't do - it's what you can do that matters. Harry, do you still have that Juliet capsule on you?"

"That what now?" Cho asked.

"Small caplet with Draught of the Living Dead in it," Harry explained absently, and began unpicking the hem of his sleeve to get at it. "It's what Shakespeare was referencing when Friar What's-his-face gave that potion to Juliet. In the play."

"Oh," Cho said. "I didn't know that."

"I didn't know either until my senior partner told me," Harry said. It was best to just say 'senior partner' around Cho; that way he wouldn't slip up and forget to call Cedric 'Tiberius'. After tugging a few more threads free, Harry managed to wriggle one finger into the hem of his sleeve and tug the glass caplet free. Technically, an agent was just supposed to bite down on his sleeve, swallow the liquid, and hope he wasn't dismembered before his team came to extract him, but he knew why Cedric wanted the caplet itself - the caplet was made of glass.

"The potion takes effect immediately," Cedric said. "We'd have, at best, ninety seconds to get the spell done before the guards arrived to have a look at Harry, so it goes like this - Harry takes the potion, I use the glass to cut my finger open, you use my blood to write a nullifying spell - one that'll dispel any immobilization charms they try - and when they come in, we subdue them, take Harry, and go."

"Go where?" Cho asked.

"I memorized the path they took when they brought us into their headquarters," Cedric said. "I'll have to lead the way. Once we're outside and past their anti-apparation wards, we can escape."

Cedric really was brilliant. It was frightening, in its own special way.

"What about our wands?" Cho asked. "We'll need them to apparate."

"Do you know a summoning charm?" Harry asked. "I mean, a traditional Chinese one, not a --"

"I know what you meant," Cho said, and she turned away from them. She drew back one sleeve and began to trace invisible lines on the stone floor, brow furrowed with intense concentration.

"What if they've had surveillance charms on us this entire time and know exactly what we're going to do?" Harry asked in a low voice.

"If that were the case, they'd have come in here to confiscate Cho's paper as soon as we mentioned it," Cedric said. "You were on surveillance with the rest of us, and you've seen these wizards operate - they're confident, overly so. They most likely didn't bother with surveillance charms. Besides, I haven't felt any residual spells."

"Felt?" Harry arched one eyebrow.

Cedric reached up and tugged a pendant out from under his collar - it was pewter and shaped into a rose, which was a bit girly.

"What is it?"

"It detects when spells are cast or operating near me," Cedric said. "So trust me, this cell is magic-free."

"I do trust you," Harry murmured. He closed his eyes and sighed. "It's Christmas Eve. We're supposed to be back in Cedarville with Mark and Chanti and Nicola, pulling Christmas crackers and drinking hot cocoa."

"I'm sorry, love," Cedric said softly. "We'll make it out of here, no worries."

"How did you know about Cho's Chinese magic, anyway? And how does it work?" Harry kept his voice low so as not to disturb Cho.

"Cho and I were good friends at school," Cedric said. "As for how it works..." He shrugged. "Ask her."

"Ask me what?"

"How does traditional Chinese magic work, exactly?" Harry turned to her, though he wanted nothing more than to drag Cedric close and kiss him.

"Do you doubt my skill?" Cho arched one eyebrow.

Harry shook his head. "No, I know better than to question the skill of a Ravenclaw." The flattery seemed to soften her a bit, so he pressed on. "I'm just curious, to be honest. I mean, I grew up thinking I was a muggle, and when they finally told me I was a wizard it never occurred to me that there was more than one type of magic."

"There are two types of traditional Chinese magic," Cho said. "I only ever learned one, and it's quite similar to the international system - it's invocation-based, wherein the focus is no good unless the spell is spoken. Unless, of course, someone has exceptionally strong focus of their own and can cast a wordless spell."

Harry nodded; wordless magic was quite impressive to many wizards, and sometimes frightening.

"The international system uses wands as a focus. In Chinese magic, the focus is written words. So if I write the words of a spell on a spell scroll, like this --" She waved one of the strips of rice paper at him -- "and then say the spell aloud, the spell begins to work. I can keep however many spell scrolls on me I like and the magic is dormant until I invoke it."

"That's useful," Harry said. "Only, what if you run out of scrolls?"

"Hence the second type of magic," Cho said. "Which I'm no good at, or we'd have been out of here long ago. I think I do know a summoning charm, by the way."

Cedric smiled. "Good."

"I'll bet, once she summons the wands, the guards will come running, so there's no need to use the Juliet juice on me," Harry said. "And that way you'll have one extra body for the fight."

Cedric took the suggestion in stride. "You're right. Ready, Cho?"

She blinked at him. "That's the first time you've said my name."

"It's a bit shorter than Auror Chang, but if it bothers you, I can desist in the future," Cedric said.

She smiled and shook her head. "I don't mind, it's just - the way you said it. A friend of mine, from back in school - he said my name the same way."

Harry cast an alarmed look at Cedric, but he just smiled sadly.

"If he is an unpleasant memory, I don't mean to remind you of him," Cedric said.

"No, he's hardly an unpleasant memory." Cho took a deep breath. "I'm ready."

Harry broke the caplet in half, like cracking a tiny egg, and handed half to Cedric. "I reckon she needs all the blood she can use, from the both of us."

Cedric nodded. "Cho, keep the scrolls once the spells are cast - we don't need to leave them with anything they can use against us."

"Of course." She laid two strips of paper out on the floor and knelt down beside them.

Harry and Cedric shuffled over to her and knelt beside her. Cedric went first, dragging the edge of the glass deep along his index finger. Blood beaded in its wake, and then Cedric held his hand out. Cho took him by the wrist and began using his finger to draw on the paper. The lines were messy and uneven, splotchy, but they formed ragged Chinese characters that Harry could never hope to read. Cho wrote vertically and managed two and a half characters before Cedric stopped bleeding, so they paused and Cedric squeezed on his finger a bit to draw more blood, and then Cho resumed writing.

"There," Cho said, and sat back. The five characters were already turning a dull brown.

"I think the cut's starting to heal," Cedric said, and gingerly wiped his finger clean on his robes.

"My turn, then," Harry said. It was surprisingly easy to stab himself in the finger with a piece of glass, and then Cho was holding his wrist. Her fingers were warm and dry, and she held him gingerly.

"You won't hurt me," Harry said. "Just pretend I'm, er, a giant pencil."

Cedric snickered.

"What? That's what she did with you," Harry said. After a moment, he caught the innuendo and self-deprecation and blushed.

Cho laughed softly. "At least one of us has a sense of humor about all this."

"Indeed," Harry said dryly. "When this is done, everyone will remember that my senior partner had a brilliant plan, that you have impressive Chinese magic, and that I was a giant bloody pencil."

"And what a good pencil you've been," Cho said.

Harry looked down and saw that she'd written an entire character and was moving onto the next one.

"When we were at school, I never imagined this sort of thing would happen," he said.

"Me neither, but then we both did some unimaginable things at school, didn't we?" Cho drew the third character and said, tone deliberately light, "Ink's running out."

Harry squeezed on his finger until more blood welled up, and Cho finished writing the spell.

"There! Two spells. Now for the first," and she spoke in rapid-fire Chinese.

An instant later, three wands, a knife, and half a dozen throwing daggers came whizzing through the bars of the cell. All three of them snatched their belongings from mid-air - seekers to the core - and then the guards arrived. Cho unlocked the cell door with a swift flick of her wand and then invoked the second spell.

Harry didn't wait to see the dumbfounded expression on the guard's face when his spell failed. Harry dove at him, tackling him to the ground. Cho caught one guard by the collar and dragged him down, smashing her knee into his face. Cedric moved swiftly and caught the the third guard in a wrist lock, broke his arm, and then kicked his ankles out from under him.

"Let's go!" Cedric took off down the hall.

Harry and Cho dashed after him. They had to stop and scuffle with guards a few more times, but Cedric led them straight to the door. They burst into freezing darkness and kept on running. They could hear their captors shouting into the night behind them, but Cho's spell held true.

"Are we at the edge of the wards yet?" Cho shouted.

"Not yet," Cedric said. They pushed on. After a dozen or so meters further, Cedric cried, "Now!"

"Where do we rendezvous?" Cho asked.

Cedric caught Harry by the arm and tugged him flush up against his body for a side-along apparation. "The Red Hills office."

Cho nodded, flicked her wand, and vanished.

Harry closed his eyes and felt Cedric's magic wash over him, and then they were standing in the Red Hills office.

Agents burst into action as soon as they arrived. Two of them grabbed Harry and Cedric and dragged them into the nearest room for debriefing. Harry saw another agent drag Cho into an adjoining room; mediwizards were summoned to check them over, and Harry realized that they hadn't healed themselves after cutting themselves to draw blood for Cho's magic.

Agent Donovan, the head of the Red Hills field office, was speaking hurriedly into the nearest floo - confirmation to the Cedarville office that all three operatives had returned safely.

"Is Auror Chang secure?" Donovan demanded.

One of the junior agents nodded.

Donovan closed the door and came to stand in front of Harry and Cedric. "What the hell happened out there, boys?"

Harry darted a glance at Cedric. As the junior partner, he didn't think he ought to explain, but then he wasn't sure that Cedric wasn't about to hang Cho out to dry for screwing up because she hadn't trust Harry for the qualified agent he was.

"Sir," Cedric began, and Donovan made an impatient gesture.

"Get rid of that glamor - it's disturbing, seeing that face and hearing your modulated voice."

Harry twisted to look over his shoulder at the closed door and didn't see Cho in the main bullpen - hopefully she was being debriefed somewhere else and would be dispatched back to the British Embassy before she saw Cedric. When Harry turned back to face his superior, he saw Cedric had removed the glamor and was pocketing his black bracelet.

"Again, what the hell happened out there?" Donovan's pace was pinched with tension and he looked about ten seconds from punching a hole through the nearest wall. Given how composed he usually was, Harry supposed he ought to be worried.

"Sir, it's Christmas Eve - I'm sure you want to be home with Jenny and baby Kevin," Harry said, and tried to summon one of his nice smiles, the kind Hermione always insisted he use for Daily Prophet photographers. "Can't we do this debriefing in the morning?"

"No. You'll tell me everything and you'll tell me right now." Donovan flicked his wand and set a recording charm.

Cedric scrubbed his hands over his face and dropped himself into the nearest chair. "We're going to need coffee."

Donovan pulled open the door and beckoned to one of the junior agents. He opened his mouth to bark a command, paused, and turned to Harry and Cedric. "We only have hot chocolate."

Harry sighed. "Sure. That'd be great. Loads of sugar."

Donovan nodded at the agent and shooed him away. Harry called after him,

"Bring a couple of candy canes if you have them!"

Cedric stared at him.

Harry shrugged. "What? It's Christmas Eve."

Donovan cleared his throat. "Debriefing."

So Cedric told him the whole story, about Harry's excellent plan, about how Cho jumped the gun and alerted the suspects by trying to arrest them. Donovan turned several different colors at that point and looked ready to storm for the nearest floo to have a word with the British Embassy liaison, but once Cedric told him about Cho's Chinese magic, Donovan relaxed slightly.

"So this magic doesn't require a wand?"

"No wand. Just paper and ink - or blood," Harry said.

Donovan hummed thoughtfully. "I see. Well, good job, Agent Diggory, for spotting the possibility of escape, and good job to you too, Agent Potter, for doing some good preliminary planning."

Harry ducked his head. "Thank you sir."

"Thank you as well," Cedric said. He finished the last of his hot chocolate and sighed. "Can we go home now, sir?"

"Of course," Donovan said. He opened the door. "Merry Christmas to you both."

"And to you, sir," Harry said. "Give our best to Jenny and Kevin."

Donovan smiled tiredly and left the office. Harry turned to Cedric and yawned.

"Are we done being heroes for the night?"

"Hopefully for the year," Cedric said. He reached out and drew Harry into a hug. It was dangerous, being this openly affectionate at work, but the other agents just wrote it off to European boys being able to be more open with their feelings than American boys. Some of the agents at the Red Hills office thought it was sweet, how the two partners were so supportive of each other.

Harry grinned into Cedric's t-shirt and wondered how those agents would react if they knew the truth.

"Come on," Cedric said. "Time to go home." He pulled back and headed for the door.

Outside, the air was sharply cool, but it wasn't nearly as cold as it would be up in Cedarville. Harry tugged on his coat, but decided to forego his gloves and hat. Cedric, now that the glamor was down, had put on a scarf to cover the scar at his throat. He pulled on a pair of fingerless gloves and swung a leg over his motorcycle.

Harry groaned. "I'm tired. Can't we just apparate? We'll come back for your bike in the morning."

"But I --"

"It's Red Hills, Cedric. No one's going to steal it. Put an anti-theft charm on it or something." Harry wrapped his arms around Cedric's waist and leaned against him. Now that all the excitement was done, he was tired. "Please - I just want to crawl in bed with you and forget that muggle-killing smugglers ever existed."

Cedric slid an arm around Harry's shoulders and lowered his head so their foreheads were touching. "I'm sorry, love. You're right. Let me just cast a charm and we can go home."

"Thank you." Harry closed his eyes and enjoyed the small patch of silence that fell between them as they breathed together. Cedric's breath smelled sweet, like mint and chocolate from the candy cane and hot cocoa. Harry closed the short distance between them and drew Cedric into a kiss, one that was all gentle mouths and twining tongues. Who cared if they were right outside of the Ministry office? It was Christmas Eve, and Harry was going to kiss his boyfriend if he bloody well wanted to.

His hands drifted down to Cedric's waist, and Cedric pulled back.

"If you have enough energy to be that randy, then we should just --"

Harry growled, but Cedric smiled to show he was just teasing.

"All right. Apparation it is." He cast a notice-me-not charm over the motorcycle so muggles would pay no attention to it and drew Harry flush against his body. Harry hoped Cedric had enough energy left in him to apparate them right into their bedroom.

Cedric lifted his wand, and then a voice broke the stillness around them.

"Happy Christmas, Harry!"

Harry's eyes flew wide, and he spun around.

Cho stood in the doorway of the office building, bundled up in a coat and her old Ravenclaw scarf. She started toward them, hand lifted to wave, and then she faltered, her smile slipping off her face.

Behind Harry, Cedric fumbled in his pocket for his glamor bracelet, but it was too late.

"Cedric?"

Cho took a step closer, and then another, and then she stumbled into the two of them, almost knocking the motorcycle over. Harry ducked out of the way, mind racing for a hundred and one explanations, and could only watch as Cho flung her arms around Cedric and hugged him breathless.

"Cedric!"

For a moment, Cedric was paralyzed.

Then he said, in a painfully bland American accent, "I'm sorry, you must have mistaken me for someone else. My name is Edward."

Harry blinked. Edward? Who the hell was Edward?

It did the trick. Cho recoiled sharply and began straightening her clothes with nervous hands. She tried to wipe the tears off her face discreetly and failed, chafing her cheeks bright red - or maybe that was embarrassment.

Harry stared at his boyfriend and said boyfriend's former school friend and wondered when the other shoe was going to drop.

"I'm so very sorry," Cho said. "It's just - you look just like this boy I knew at school named Cedric."

Cedric laughed - Harry would have been fooled by the sincerity of that laugh if not for the shadows in Cedric's eyes - and grinned, running a hand over his hair nervously. "It's happened before. Harry refused to go out with me for nearly two weeks until I'd convinced him that I really was someone else." He still spoke with that frightening accent. Where had he learned to do that? As an Unspeakable?

Cho blinked. "Go out with you?"

Cedric nodded. "Yeah - I'm Harry's boyfriend. Didn't he tell you? That guy he works with, Tiberius, is definitely just a coworker."

Cho turned to Harry, who suddenly felt distinctly cornered. "Yeah, Tiberius has gone home to his, erm, wife. Buzzed right on out of here."

"I didn't realize he was married," Cho said. She turned back to Cedric. "So, Edward, what brings you here?"

"Oh, Harry called me on his cell and asked me to pick him up now that he's done." He smiled at Harry, and the expression was genuinely fond. "He promised me that this double shift had earned him time off till the new year."

"Cell?" Cho asked, and Harry could see the gears in her brain turning. She thought this Edward character was a muggle, then.

"Mobile," Harry translated.

"I see." Cho tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and lifted her chin. "I didn't know you liked boys, Harry."

"It wasn't something I really thought about much at school," Harry said, shifting under her gaze. "You know - Dark Lord to kill and all."

"I see. Well, I'm glad you found someone. Tell Tiberius Happy Christmas for me." Cho turned away and started for the secluded spot behind the office where it was safe to apparate. Then she turned and smiled sadly at Cedric. "I'm sorry for throwing myself at you like that. I hope you make Harry happy. He deserves it."

Harry and Cedric watched her go, listened to the gunshot of disapparation. Cedric leaned against the motorbike and sighed.

"Are you all right?" Harry asked.

Cedric reached up and ran his thumb over Harry's cheekbone. "Yeah. It's just hard, sometimes, lying to people I knew before, people I cared about. I'd thought it was done once my time as an Unspeakable was done, but Vadette was right - Unspeakables are for life."

"It was nice to be able to tell someone you're my boyfriend, though," Harry said. "I think that's the first time I've just - _said_ it aloud like that. And even though she thought you were someone else, I still got to say it."

"It was nice to hear." Cedric smiled softly and leaned down to press a kiss to Harry's brow.

"Still, though, Edward? And an American accent? What was that?" Harry asked.

Cedric laughed. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Now come on - it's Christmas Eve, the fire is probably roaring, and I bought us a brand new bearskin rug."

Harry leaned up to kiss Cedric again, and Cedric tugged him close.

They were still kissing when they disapparated.


End file.
